The wind inside the Mirror World wasn't wind—it was breath.
Every gust that brushed Ren's skin whispered names. Names he didn't recognize. Names that once belonged to versions of himself that had never lived long enough to scream.
The moment his twisted double stepped forward—same eyes, same blood, but a grin etched with cruelty—time felt like glass ready to break again.
And then—
Light fractured.
From above.
No, not light—wings.
Glass-like, jagged wings—each feather a floating shard, each shard glowing with an inner pulse that hummed like heartbeat and storm.
She landed behind Ren without sound. Bare feet on nothing. Eyes the color of burnt stars.
The silver-haired girl.
Not the Rebellion. Not the Keeper.
This was someone else.
Her voice cut through the rising tension like the edge of a blade wrapped in silk.
"You weren't supposed to awaken him yet, Ren."
Ren's heart jolted.
The mirror double tilted his head. "Tch. So she came early."
He flexed his fingers. Nails like glass needles. "No matter. I've already cracked too far to stop now."
Ren stepped back beside the girl—his eyes never leaving his double's twisted face.
"Who are you?" he asked quietly. "You… feel like a memory I forgot to keep."
She didn't look at him. Her gaze was fixed on the double.
"I'm the last piece the Pane couldn't erase. The one you left behind… when you first chose to feel."
Her wings glimmered like mourning stars.
"I'm the regret that grew wings."
The Mirror's Rebellion gasped softly behind them.
"She's—! That's impossible…"
The girl raised her hand.
The Pane itself screamed.
Every reflection in the sky shattered in a slow spiral. Floating shards rained down, each one containing flashes of a different Ren—one dying in fire, one held prisoner in a mirrored cage, one laughing with someone who didn't exist anymore.
The Shard-Keeper, watching from afar, whispered under her breath.
"She… found her form. The Echo who never became real."
The silver-haired girl stepped forward. Her wings spread.
And her voice, now laced with memory and wrath, sang one phrase:
"Let the buried versions rise."
From every direction, a new battlefield formed. The Pane was no longer solid—it was warping. Twisting into a cathedral of echoes, where every wall was a different past.
Ren could feel it. Pieces of himself—memories, decisions, regrets—all walking toward him. Some smiling. Some crying. One screaming.
The war of selves had begun.
And in the center stood Ren, the Rebellion, the girl with the shard-wings…
And the version of himself who had never felt mercy.
The Pane had reshaped itself into something far worse than a battlefield.
It had become a cathedral of memory—
A place where every step echoed who Ren might have been…
…and every wall reflected what he was afraid to become.
Massive pillars of twisted glass curved skyward like the ribs of a dead god. Hanging between them were hovering shards—fragments of timelines, suspended like stained glass windows, each showing a scene that should never have existed.
One showed Ren holding a girl with pink hair as she bled out in his arms.
Another—Ren walking through fire, leaving the corpses of countless enemies behind him.
And another—him smiling, peacefully… with no shadows behind his eyes.
"What is this place?" Ren whispered, stepping into the ever-bending cathedral.
The silver-haired girl with the shard-wings stood beside him, her face unreadable.
"This is where the Pane keeps what it doesn't want you to see."
Her voice was soft, like frost falling.
"Your echoes. The Refused Selves. The lives you could have lived… if you made one different choice."
The Mirror's Rebellion trailed behind, her hands shaking.
> "I thought they were gone," she whispered. "I thought once you chose a path, the others faded. But they've been watching us, Ren."
From across the cathedral, laughter echoed.
Low.
Mocking.
Too familiar.
The twisted double—the version of Ren that felt no fear, no remorse—sat upon a throne of broken reflections. Behind him marched silhouettes—dozens, hundreds—each shaped like Ren but wrong. Some had claws. Some had wings. One had no mouth, just a bleeding face that grinned without expression.
"Nice place, huh?" the double sneered, waving lazily. "Welcome to my temple."
"This isn't your temple," the shard-winged girl snapped. "It's our grave."
The throne groaned as the double rose, stretching his neck like he hadn't worn a body in years.
"Call it whatever you want. But this is where you die, 'main' Ren. And when you do, I stop being an echo."
He extended a hand—and instantly, the cathedral shifted.
Walls melted. The pillars exploded outward. The air shimmered as every echo of Ren began to move.
"One version of you," the double said, "against all the ones who deserved to exist more than you."
The Rebellion stepped forward beside Ren. Her fingers clasped his sleeve.
"We'll fight together."
The shard-winged girl joined them too.
"No," she said, lifting her arms. "We'll fight as one."
And her wings shattered.
The glass exploded outward—not into chaos, but into armor. Shard by shard, they hovered around Ren and the Rebellion, fusing into mirrored plating, wrapping around their forms. Not as protection—but as remembrance.
Each piece carried a truth. A memory. A weapon.
Ren's eyes glowed faint blue.
And his voice—finally steady—cut through the weight of past and future alike.
"Then let them come."
From the stained-glass void, the first wave surged.
A Ren who had killed his first love to survive.
A Ren who gave in to madness and became a god.
A Ren who never cried once.
Each with their pain.
Each with their blade.
Ren raised his own sword—the one forged from reflection.
And the fight began.
Not just for survival.
But for identity.
For the right to choose who he was going to be.
There were no trumpets in the Mirror World.
No drums to beat the arrival of war.
Only the sound of shattering.
A mirror split the sky like lightning—
And the first of the echo-warriors lunged for Ren's throat.
They didn't fight like memories.
They fought like regret given form.
One had blades for fingers—slicing through the Pane as if it were water.
Another floated above the ground, draped in black fire, whispering truths Ren had never spoken.
A third—a boy with dead eyes—gripped the exact same sword Ren held, but wielded it without mercy.
"You were the weakest of us," he hissed. "You hesitated. I never did."
Ren clashed with him, sword meeting sword, echo meeting origin.
Sparks flew—not metal, but emotion—flaring between them in waves of forgotten memories.
Every swing hurt.
Not the body.
The soul.
Each impact brought flashes—
—Ren crying in the rain at age seven
—Ren standing beside his mother's grave
—Ren staring into the mirror, begging not to change
But beside him, they fought too.
The Mirror's Rebellion danced like a flickering flame, her movements not sharp, but resolute.
She wasn't just fighting for him—she was fighting for every version of herself he never let exist.
The silver-haired girl—no longer just an echo—became light incarnate.
Her fists collided with the air, breaking illusions like glass.
When she screamed, it wasn't rage.
It was freedom.
"He's mine," she said, eyes burning white. "And I won't let you rewrite him."
Behind her, the cathedral continued to collapse—
Reflections imploding, timelines bleeding into one another.
From within the rubble, the true enemy watched.
The Shard-Keeper.
Eyes no longer detached, but hungry.
"Good," she whispered to herself. "Let him tear himself apart. Then we'll gather what's left."
But Ren heard her.
"You want pieces of me?" he shouted.
He spun his blade, unleashing a burst of raw Mirror energy—a wave that cut through five echoes in one blow.
His breath was ragged. His eyes blurred with past selves.
"Then take them. I don't need all of me."
He raised his sword toward the Pane above
…and stabbed it.
The cathedral of memory screamed.
The sky ruptured.
A burst of light engulfed everything, and for a moment, it was just Ren.
One voice.
One truth.
"I'm not your prisoner anymore."
When the light faded, the echoes were gone.
Only three remained.
Ren.
The Mirror's Rebellion.
And the silver-haired girl.
All panting.
All bleeding.
All free.
But then came a sound.
Slow. Mocking.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
From the far end of the broken cathedral, the true Mirror Double stepped forward again—untouched.
Still smiling.
"So dramatic," he said, voice soaked in venom. "But you forgot, Ren."
He tilted his head.
"I'm not one of your echoes."
He stepped into the light.
"I'm the original."